A section of twenty one kings, presidents and top officials from the Arab League summit pose for a group photo, at a gathering near the Dead Sea in Jordan on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. With the exception of Syria, whose chair sits empty, all Arab states are participating in the annual event aiming to work on regional solutions to conflicts in Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Syria while tackling extremism, poverty and worries over the new American administration. (AP Photo/ Raad Adayleh)

The Latest: US envoy at Arab summit: Mideast peace possible

March 29, 2017 - 3:26 pm

The Associated Press

DEAD SEA, Jordan (AP) — The Latest on the Arab summit being held in Jordan (all times local):

8:20 p.m.

Donald Trump's international envoy has told officials at an Arab summit that the U.S. president believes an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is possible and would "reverberate positively throughout the region and the world."

The U.S. Embassy in Jordan said on Wednesday that in his meetings, Jason Greenblatt "focused on how tangible progress could be made toward advancing Middle East peace," but that a deal could not be imposed.

On the sidelines of the summit, Greenblatt held talks with the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt and Qatar, as well as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The gathering, hosted by Jordan, drew leaders from 21 Arab countries. In a final statement, the leaders relaunched an Arab peace plan that offers Israel full normalization in exchange for Palestinian statehood.

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6:50 p.m.

A senior Israeli Cabinet minister says the Arab summit's stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reflects "the many challenges faced by the Arab world."

The summit held on Wednesday in Jordan reaffirmed a 2002 Arab peace plan that offers Israel normalization if it cedes captured lands for the creation of a Palestinian state. That appeared to undercut Israel's attempts to seek regional normalization ahead of a peace deal.

Intelligence Minister Israel Katz says the Palestinian issue should not be ignored. But he says the Arab world should not lose sight of "strategic regional challenges," including Iran, the Islamic State group and crises in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya.

Katz says that working together on these threats, while improving conditions of the Palestinians, can "lay the ground work" for progress.

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6:40 p.m.

Arab leaders have reaffirmed a 2002 peace plan that offers Israel normal ties if it cedes lands it captured in the 1967 Mideast war to a future Palestinian state.

The declaration was issued at the end of an Arab summit, attended by 21 presidents, kings and top officials.

The statement says that "peace is a strategic option" for the Arab world, based on a two-state solution — Palestine in the pre-1967 lines — alongside Israel.

It also urged countries around the world not to move their diplomatic missions in Israel to contested Jerusalem, a signal to President Donald Trump who said in the past he would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to the holy city.

The Palestinians seek east Jerusalem, captured in 1967, as a future capital.

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5 p.m.

Yemen's embattled president has launched a scathing verbal attack on Iran, saying the non-Arab and mostly Shiite nation is pursuing expansionist policies to destroy the Arab identity.

Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi told an Arab summit in Jordan on Wednesday that Iran "is the true sponsor of terrorism."

Civil war has raged in Yemen for two years. The fighting pits Hadi's troops, backed by a Saudi-led international military coalition of mostly Arab states, against Shiite Houthi rebels, led by Abdul-Malek al-Houthi and backed by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his forces. Iran supports fellow Shiite Houthis.

Hadi, who heads the internationally recognized government based in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, lavishly praised Saudi Arabia for its role in the war.

The conflict has killed more than 10,000 civilians, displaced over three million people and pushed the impoverished country to the brink of famine.

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4:15 p.m.

The head of Libya's U.N.-backed government has called for a dialogue between all political rivals in the North African country to reach a political settlement to the country's crisis.

Fayez Serraj told an Arab summit in Jordan on Wednesday that "everyone knows that no party can achieve a military solution."

Libya descended into chaos with its 2011 civil war. In recent months, rival power centers have been sliding closer to open conflict, with breakaway militias backed by western Libyan factions seizing oil terminals from the east's strongman general, whose forces have vowed to take them back.

In his summit speech, Serraj renewed a call to the Arab League to oversee a unified force tasked with the protection of oil terminals.

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2:10 p.m.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Saudi Arabia's King Salman slipped out of an Arab summit session for face-to-face talks, signaling an attempt at possible reconciliation.

A photo handout by the Egyptian delegation showed the two leaders sitting next to each other in white overstuffed chairs.

Relations between the two countries have been tense in recent months.

Saudi Arabia is a leading supporter of the Syrian opposition, while Egypt, fearful of Islamic militants among the rebels' ranks, has pushed for a political solution that might keep Syrian President Bashar Assad in power.

In October, the Saudis abruptly suspended oil aid to Egypt just days after Cairo backed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria drafted by Assad's ally Russia. The shipments resumed several days ago.

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12:20 p.m.

The U.N. secretary-general has warned Arab leaders that their internal divisions have opened the door to foreign intervention and have helped breed sectarianism and terrorism.

Antonio Guterres told an Arab summit Wednesday that while fighting terrorism is essential, "any success will prove ephemeral" without a political solution to Syria's 6-year-old civil war that allows Syrians to decide their own fate.

He said efforts to end conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya must "not distract us from seeking to heal the longest open wound in the region, the plight of the Palestinian people."

Guterres said setting up a Palestinian state alongside Israel is the only solution to the conflict. He says Israeli settlements on war-won land are illegal, and called on Israel to halt construction.

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12:15 p.m.

Jordan's king has told the opening session of an Arab summit that there can be no peace or stability in the region without setting up a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

King Abdullah II, who is hosting Wednesday's gathering of 21 Arab leaders, said the Palestinian quest for statehood remains the central issue in the Middle East.

Jordan has a large Palestinian population and also serves as custodian of a major Muslim-run shrine in Jerusalem that is also Judaism's holiest site.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, has been a scene of frequent Israeli-Palestinian tensions, including clashes. Palestinians fear Israel wants to divide it, a charge Israel denies.

Jordan's monarch says "we will continue to fight any attempts to change the status quo" at the site.

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10:15 a.m.

Arab leaders are gathering for an annual summit where the call for Palestinian statehood is to take center stage.

The summit on Wednesday is expected to endorse key Palestinian positions, signaling to President Donald Trump ahead of White House meetings with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan that a deal on Palestinian statehood must precede any Israeli-Arab normalization.

The Palestinian issue also serves as a showcase for Arab unity in a fractured region, where leaders often find themselves on opposite sides of long-running conflicts.

From their venue on the shores of Jordan's Dead Sea, leaders from 21 Arab countries have a view of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

President Bashar Assad is absent. He hasn't been invited since Syria's suspension from the Arab League following the 2011 uprising.